Google Gears Down for Tougher Times — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Corporate austerity is reaching one of the most extravagant spenders of the boom years. Google Inc. has begun to tighten its belt. — For much of its 10-year history, Google spent money at a pace that was the marvel of Silicon Valley.

2,000,000 Pandora iPhone users!!! — At 10:04am this morning we hit 2,000,000 registered iPhone Pandora users! — We're hearing all sorts of wonderful feedback from listeners who are using it on their commute, jogging with it, plugging it into home audio systems...you name it.

Apple deletes Mac antivirus suggestion — Updated 7:45 p.m. PST with expert comment, at 7:20 p.m. PST with context on previous coverage, and at 7:08 p.m. PST with background. — Apple removed an old item from its support site late Tuesday that urged Mac customers to use multiple antivirus utilities …

.Tel Them Where to Find You — On Wednesday, companies and organizations can register Web addresses with a new top-level domain, .tel. The new domain, which stores and encrypts contact information directly into the Domain Name System, has the potential to become a phone book for the Internet.

Vista SP2: What's inside? — Microsoft is continuing to broaden the pool of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) testers beyond the fairly small, select group who've been working with test builds for the past few months. — Over on the jkOnTheRun blog, Kevin Tofel posted the most complete list I've seen of what's in Vista SP2.

Everything you always wanted to know about Google... ...But were afraid to ask. This is the title of this very interesting 34-slide presentation on Google prepared by FaberNovel, a french consulting firm. It is hard to realize the real nature of this just 10 years old giant given the number …

MySpace Video Goes Mobile (But Sans Hulu & Not on iPhones) — You know it's a strange, finicky sign of the times when MySpace announces that it has launched a beta mobile video site that will stream video directly to handsets around the globe — but that news is almost immediately deflated …

Firm makes one billionth mouse — Logitech says its factory in Suzhou, in western China, has produced the firm's billionth computer mouse. Video courtesy of Logitech. — A Silicon Valley company has hailed as a major landmark the production of their one billionth computer mouse.

World's 1st 3D LED Display Sports 180-inch Screen — NewSight Corp of the US developed a 3D display using LEDs as pixels for the first time in the world. — Featuring a 180-inch screen with a width of 3.84m, the “3D LED Video Wall” is one of the world's largest 3D displays.

Web Marketing That Hopes to Learn What Attracts a Click — ONLINE advertisers are not lacking in choices: They can display their ads in any color, on any site, with any message, to any audience, with any image. — Now, a new breed of companies is trying to tackle all of those options …

T-Mobile slashes G1 pricing “in light of recent launches” … T-Mobile has made some dramatic price cuts for its exclusive Android-based G1 mobile phone. — Although the device only went on sale on 30 October, it's just over a month later and the operator is now giving away the phone for free on £30 tariffs.

Windows 7 Beta 1 to arrive January 13? — At the Professional Developers Conference in late October, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky announced that Windows 7 Beta 1 would be ready “early next year.” A Microsoft insider has now confirmed the actual date, which is indeed very early next year.

Open source, VC and the long path — My CAOS colleague Matt Aslett wrote recently about how we expect to see an uptick in open source merger and acquisition activity given the current economic conditions and bargains for the larger, mostly proprietary players.

Getting a grip on Python: six ways to learn online — Recently, Google has stepped up its presence in the cloud computing arena. Google's new App Engine (aka “AppSpot") lets you design and run web applications using Google's existing infrastructure. Their (free) basic account offers …